Chapter 168 - The After-battles Begin

****KAAAABOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!!!!

The next moment, a giant explosion occurred in the distance. He looked over and saw a giant mushroom cloud forming at one part of the city.

**BOOM BOOM!! BOOOOOMMMM!!!

More smaller explosions could be heard as Arthur made the smart decision to run in the opposite direction of the explosions.

He kicked off the ground and jumped onto a building roof, unfortunately, he could not go any further as the two tailing him decided to take action.

**CRACKLE!!!

He heard the sound of lightning and instantly turned around, creating a shield with earth magic to block the incoming bolt.

**BOOM!!

The lightning hit the earth shield and he slammed the shield into the ground immediately, diverting the force of the lightning into the ground.

He was about to retaliate when he sensed a third presence close in almost instantly.

"You bastards! Give me my relic back!!"

A man wearing an all-black light armor set jumped into the fray. Ignoring Arthur, he directly attacked the other two with bloodshot eyes.

**RUMBLE!!

The ground rumbled as the building they were standing on collapsed due to the force of his landing.

He spread out his hands and manipulated his magic power to cover the falling pieces of the building, morphing them into spears and with a wave of his hands, the spears shot towards the two assailants.

Arthur clicked his tongue and jumped to safety while covering his body with aura.

The other two also utilized techniques of their own to escape the spears. One covered his whole body with lightning and blitzed out of the range of the spears.

The other took a deep breath and released a huge burst of flames that melted all the spears in his path.

Arthur looked at the trio and saw that they were all superior stage grandmasters. He landed on the ground and dashed away from them, however, he did not plan to run away.

'Those two attacked me first, I can't let them off so easily. Even if it means attacking that third guy too.'

***BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!

The lightning and fire duo retaliated towards the earth mage immediately. They had beaten him before and robbed him of his relic so they believed they could do it again.

The relic they got from him was an Awakening relic that could awaken someone's latent potential. It had three charges and could be used multiple times by the same person. The success rate was over 80% as such it was very valuable.

Explosions rang out as the earth mage blocked the attacks with an earth shield. He flipped back lightly and gritted his teeth with anger.

He looked around and saw the fire mage's hand catch fire and lightning crackled around the body of the lightning mage.

He expanded his senses but he did not sense the other person who was fighting the two earlier. Deciding that they had most likely run away he smiled as magic power swelled from his body.

Stamping his foot on the ground, rocks shot up and he fired those rocks towards the lightning and fire duo.

He then touched a broken building fragment and reformed it into a giant war hammer nearly twice his height.

Raising it up he spoke and the duo in front of him felt their blood run cold.

"Earth Magic: Gladius."

He then slammed the giant war hammer into the ground.

**BOOOMM!!!

The earth below their feet was torn apart with a single strike from the war hammer. The debris from the strike was launched high into the air with absurd speeds. Dozens of buildings collapsed simultaneously and all those within perished instantly.

Multiple city blocks were destroyed by this attack, Arthur also had to back away as fast as he could so as to not get caught up in the attack. Unfortunately he was still hit by some of the debris that was going airborne.

He pulled out a five layered defensive shield similar to the one he used against Owen and rotated the layers to form an encirclement around him to protect him from the debris.

Even still, he then created another shield with his weapon creation artifact. This one was placed beneath his feet to protect him from the rocks that came from below.

**BAM! BAMM!! BAMMM!!!

The force with which the rocks slammed into the shields was enough to cause them to crack almost immediately.

However before they could crack completely, the rocks stopped floating up.

Arthur then saw a shadow casted on the ground, one that he really didn't want to know the source of. Looking up he saw what could be considered a small mountain like structure.

He then heard the loud voice of the earth mage as a massive four ringed magic circle spread out from atop the mountain like structure.

"Earth Magic: CATASTROPHE."

'Damn right it is!'

Arthur gave up all thoughts of fighting the duo again, he disabled his shields and retreated as far as he could.

**CRACKLEEEEEE!!!!!

There were flashes of light from behind him as well as two explosions of magic power. He heard the crackling of lightning as he guessed that the duo was attempting to destroy the Earth mage's catastrophe spell.

Unfortunately, it was a bit too late for that.

The mountain like structure fell to the ground so fast that the lightning mage's spell could barely form by the time it hit the ground.

****KABOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!

A large explosion of great magnitude resounded followed by an earthquake that shook the entire city.

The ground began rumbling as the mountain like structure crushed any and every thing caught up in its range.

As for Arthur, he had spread his wing and flown away without looking back. He even poured magic power into his wings to increase his flight speed as he blitzed out of the city as fast as he could.

Even still, the shockwaves and wind pressure from the explosion still caught up to him and flung him away.

**BOOM!

He crashed on the ground after hurriedly retracting his wings and creating a shield with his weapon creating artifact.

**CRASHH!!

He crashed into a wall like structure as the shield broke due to the force of his fall.

"Ow!!!!"

He did not need to know healing or medical magic to know that he had broken quite a few bones. His magic power had also decreased by more than half as he spent most of it on enhancing his wings to fly out of the explosions range quickly.

He rose his left hand that managed to survive unscathed and accessed the inter spatial ring on it. He pulled out multiple magic and healing potions and downed them immediately.

Cranking his head up, he could see flashes of light from a distance as the lightning mage that somehow survived the explosion clashed against the earth mage who had expended a lot of his magic power.

**BOOOMM!!!

He saw lightning drop from the skies as followed by an explosion as the earth mage countered with a shield. Next, a giant golem rose up from the ground and punched towards the air, most likely at the location of the airborne lightning mage.

**BOOM!

There was another explosion as a burst of lightning was released, followed by the golem's hand crumbling.

Five gigantic four ringed magic circle, Large enough that they could be seen for miles, appeared in the sky.

Next, a giant sword of golden lightning, lit up the night sky as it then crashed down into the chest area of the golem.

Arthur felt like he heard a scream as the giant golem exploded and the broken rocks were fired in all directions.

After this, the lightning sword vanished and the sky darkened once more.

By the time all these happened, Arthur had already healed his wounds and had gotten to his feet.

Discarding what was left of his mask, he checked to see that the appearance altering earrings were still there and smiled before taking a running stance.

He poured magic power into the gauntlets under his torn blazer and kicked off the ground.

The earth under his feet collapsed as he shot forward towards the scene of the battle between the two mages.

His physical strength and speed as an intermediate stage grandmaster, amplified by his gauntlets were now on the level where he could cross the distance in less than 10 minutes.

The entirety of the city had been turned into rubble due to the earth mage's catastrophe spell.

At the center, was a giant crater hundreds of meters deep and wide.

There earth around there was scorched due to the lightning mage's attacks. Not a single area was unscathed.

At the bottom of this crater, the mangled and burnt body of the earth mage could be seen and the lightning mage was standing above it.

In his hands, was a bag, most likely a space expansion artifact similar to Arthur's inter spatial ring.

Seeing this Arthur grinned and rose a hand towards the lightning mage before shouting out to him.

"How about you have a taste of your own medicine?"